“My mother?”
“God, yes. She just hid it better.” Sara’s eyes go soft for a second before narrowing, settling on me again. “You’re so much like her it hurts to look at you sometimes. You think pain makes you real, Diane, but holding onto it is what makes youheavy. And you’re not meant to be heavy. Neither was she.” She coughs, the sound scraping. “Remember, rain catchers aren’t just repositories for storms, they’re a source of life-giving water. They’re not meant to hold the rain, Diane, but to release it.”
I laugh against the tears. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m afraid of releasing the rain. Maybe I’m afraid of what will grow in its wake.”
Sara’s eyes don’t leave mine; they anchor me in this moment. “Then let the rain fall, Diane. Stand in it, feel it soak you to the bone. Only then can you decide whether to run for cover or dance."
I swallow hard, the words hitting me like cold wind against my face. I give her hand a squeeze, and she returns it with a comforting firmness that belies her frail state. She's still here, still fighting, and it gives me the courage to stand.
"I'll try," I whisper.
"Good.”
We sit there, the two of us, tangled up in tubes and memory and the last dregs of daylight. I want to stay here forever, but I know I can’t.
When she falls asleep, I stay beside her, counting the seconds between breaths, willing each one to last. I let the quiet build until it fills the whole house, then tiptoe out, closing the door behind me.
When I return to the cottage, the answering machine is blinking with new messages. I check them. There’s one from Amaya, one from a neighbor, six from Nathan.
I pick up the phone and dial his number, my stomach twisting as each ring echoes in my ears. It feels like a lifetime before he picks up, and for a moment, all I can hear is the sound of our breaths—his surprised, mine trembling.
“Diane?”
It’s just my name, but it feels like an apology, like a plea.
“It’s me,” I say, my voice no more than a whisper. “Nathan, we need to talk.”
There's a pause, then a quiet, "Of course." His voice sounds raw, as if he hasn't spoken since I left him last night.
The conversation that follows is a dance of words and silences, hesitation and confession. At first, we're both brittle. I say I shouldn't have yelled, that I was surprised by the letters but more surprised by how badly I wanted them not to exist. He confesses that he should have told me, should have trusted me with the story of her, with the version of the past that keeps intruding into his present by way of old envelopes and unsent goodbyes.
"I just didn’t want you to think that I still harbored any feelings for her.”
“Really? Then how do you explain what you wrote to her?”
There’s a pause on the line. “Honestly, I started writing that letter a few weeks after I got here, before you and I ever met. It was my way of processing everything that had happened between us. I would have told you that, but you ran out before I could explain.”
“But why did you keep it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I thought I would eventually send it. Maybe I just needed a safe somewhere for it to exist, so it wouldn’t keep repeating in my head. Regardless, that was before I met you, Diane. After that, the letter felt…irrelevant.”
I close my eyes, letting his words soak in.
“I know it might not be the right time to say this, but I love you, Diane,” he says, rushing past the awkwardness, as if daring me to contradict him. “I know I’m lousy at showing it, but I do.”
My throat closes up. I’m not sure if it’s what he said or the way he said it, like a confession or a key dropped into my open palm. I clutch the receiver tighter, needing to feel something solid.
I don’t say it back. Instead, I just listen. He waits, and I hear him breathing. I imagine him doodling on a pad of paper, his mind jumping ahead to what I might say next and also bracing against it. He doesn’t try to force it, doesn’t plead. Just waits, the way you wait for water to boil, knowing you can’t hurry the process without ruining whatever comes after.
Finally, I take a breath so deep my ribs stretch, my whole chest expanding with the new air, and say, “I love you too.”
29
Diane
Nathan arrives just as the tide begins its retreat, the wet sand below Sara’s cliffside house gleaming like a polished wound. He stands at the threshold for a moment, blinking in the glare, both hands gripping a bulky package sheathed in brown kraft paper and blue painter's tape. He’s dressed for the occasion, in new jeans, his button-down uncharacteristically pressed. Behind him, the sea breathes in and out, indifferent to all this anticipation.
I meet him on the porch. The marine layer has burned off, leaving the air sharp with salt and the faint sweetness of Sara’s dying camellias. There’s something careful about the way Nathan moves. His footsteps are measured, shoulders squared as if bracing for impact.